she walks through her sunken dream
by pencil gal
Summary: Claire Bennet has lived many lives, and travelled to many places. But sometimes it takes many years to find your way home.


**Disclaimer: **_Heroes_ belongs to Tim Kring and the NBC. I am in no way associated with either and I make no profit from this story.

_A/N: _Original idea for final scene came from boombangbing's _Until I Sleep._

**she walks through her sunken dream**

When she was ten years old she started dreaming of what her wedding would be like. There would be lots of flowers making the church pretty, and she'd wear a big puffy white dress, and her Dad would walk her down the aisle. She'd marry the man of her dreams and have the little house with the white picket fence and live happily ever after.

Two days after she turned sixteen she learnt that things would never be the same again. She wasn't normal, not anymore. She never would be again, no matter how much she wished to be.

Claire Bennet was a freak, and who could ever love a freak?

--

Claire Bennet had never imagined that at the age of twenty-one she would be engaged and only a week away from being married. Standing by the mirror in her attic room in the Petrelli mansion, Claire ran her hands down the white silk of her dress. Her veil was hanging up behind her door. She smiled at her reflection as she turned to look at the back of her gown.

West was a good man, she knew that. Sure he didn't make her heart pound and her fingers tingle and her toes curl with just one crooked smile like someone else did, but that was okay. Because she wasn't naïve enough to believe that dreams always came true. West made her happy. He could give her a normal life and hopefully that would be enough.

Claire turned as she heard a knock on the door. "Come in," she called out as she continued to observe the young woman staring back at her in the mirror. Her green eyes met Peter's dark ones in the mirror as he came to stand behind her.

"You look… beautiful," he murmured. Claire shivered, though whether it was from the warmth of his breath against her neck or the image the two of them together in the mirror she wasn't sure. She turned so that she was facing Peter and looked up into his eyes. There was a feeling there that she had seen before as Peter raised a hand to cup her cheek.

Claire's heart began to pound in her chest as his thumb brushed across her cheekbone. "Peter…" Her eyes fluttered shut as he bent his head closer, no longer able to resist the effect she had on him, not while she stood there in her white gown, with her sad eyes screaming for him.

Something finally exploded in Claire as Peter's lips met hers. She had no idea what was happening outside of this kiss. Everything was lips and hands and tongues. Nothing else mattered, not the wedding, not Nathan, not even the open door that anyone might any second pass by. It was just her and him and this moment.

--

Claire returned home (to California, not New York) two years later.

West had moved on finally (she had really hurt him but it was better in the long run), Peter had disappeared (no one had seen him since that night despite much effort put into finding him) and she was finally ready after her self-imposed seclusion to make another attempt at a normal life.

Claire went out and got a job, she spent time with her family, and she went out partying with her friends. She even met a nice guy called Tom.

And she was happy. For a little while anyway.

--

She was one hundred and five when she had her first fling with Adam.

Everyone she had ever cared about had already died (except for little Monty but even he was an old man by then, well into his nineties) or disappeared. Claire was tired of people leaving while she was cursed to perpetually remain, an old woman trapped in the body of a girl. And when she happened to stumble upon Adam in Italy she was willing to just let go and be selfish and happy for once.

For two weeks Claire was content. They travelled through Italy together, a new village or city every day. And at nights Adam made her scream like no other person had been able to do before. For two weeks life was bliss. Of course she should have known it wouldn't last. Because really, when had anything in her life ever been easy?

The day before they had planned to leave for London, Adam tried to change the world again. After stopping him from unleashing havoc on the unsuspecting country (and all by herself as well she might add. You just couldn't get good superhero help these days) Claire hopped onto a plane to Sydney and hoped she'd never see Adam Monroe again.

She disappeared into the Australian outback, completely off everyone's radars, for the next twenty-eight years.

--

Her second fling with Adam lasted ten years.

She had been walking down a street in some small town in Texas (not Odessa, never Odessa) when he had stopped in front of her and stated calmly, "Hello, lover." The first thing Claire wondered was not what he was doing back in America but rather how he still had his English accent after so many centuries. Not that it was in any way important (especially after all she had seen him do) but it was the first thing that popped into her head.

The second thing was that she decided years ago that she never wanted to see him again. Of course, Claire had lived through another century of loneliness since then and maybe it was time that she gave a relationship a chance. And since she hadn't seen the only other immortal she knows in exactly two hundred years then why shouldn't she attempt to find happiness with someone else? Someone else who could understand the emptiness of time.

And so Claire decided to give him a chance and let things go where they please. She smiled and offered him her hand.

"Hello, Adam."

--

Claire's final fling with Adam lasted a grand total of five minutes. It consisted of a kiss, a slap to the face, and her walking away.

She was three hundred and twelve.

--

She was three hundred and fifty-two and in the process of completing her fifth degree (a BA in Philosophy this time and under the name Claire Benson) when she heard about the volunteers wanted to colonise Venus. Claire did her research, got in contact with the guy in charge and had her name put down on the list.

She had already travelled the entire Earth, many times over. This was already her second time studying at Oxford and fourth visit to England. She had done Europe twice (once backpacking, once staying in the classiest hotels she could find), Africa once (it had depressed her too much so she hadn't gone back), Asia three times (the food was too good to resist), she had lived in every single city throughout both North and South America, and she had spent eighty-three years all up living in Australia.

It was time for something new. Something different. And so Claire Benson was ready to leave. Go intergalactic, see the universe, all that jazz. And she was honestly excited about it. Until the list was released anyway, and then she discovered who else was destined for outer space.

The name Adam Monroe was listed under the heading of Information and Technology only eighteen places below her own name. Suddenly she wasn't quite so excited to see new places. After everything that had happened with Adam Claire didn't relish the thought of being somewhere isolated with him and with only one hundred and forty-eight other people to accompany them. If Adam had plans to take over and establish this colony the way he wanted (and of course Adam had plans of the sort, he always had plans) then Claire was not going to be anywhere near it. She had already had her fair share of saving the world from Adam Monroe. Someone else could save it this time.

When the time came for the shuttle to leave Earth Claire Benson was nowhere to be found.

--

Claire was four hundred and thirty-three when she got married. It was nothing like she had imagined when she was ten years old. She didn't wear a white gown (times had changed and these days it was fashionable to wear the brightest colour possible), rather it was a deep crimson satin. The ceremony took place outside, under the bright Chinon sun and with no flowers in sight. She walked down the aisle by herself (both her fathers had died centuries ago and there was no one else who could possibly fill their shoes).

She didn't even get the little house with the white picket fence. Paul owned an apartment in the fanciest part of the city and that's where they had agreed to live.

Claire somehow found it fitting that even now that she was married, and after all the names she had adopted in the past, her initials still remained CB.

They had two little girls, named Lily and Elizabeth, and eventually they all moved to a house in the suburbs. It didn't have a picket fence but it was normal (at least as normal as life could be in the twenty-fifth century). She decorated the house and they bought vases and put up photographs everywhere. They created a home for the girls and for Paul and Claire thought that she was happy. After so many years she achieved what she had always wanted.

And for a few years, Claire was able to pretend that she was normal. But then the girls started to grow up and Paul started getting older and suddenly Claire was reminded why she always gave up on these dreams long before she actually reached them. She stayed for as long as she could. But when both Lily and Elizabeth looked as if they were at least twenty years older than her she decided it was time to go.

Claire said goodbye to Paul and knew that she was leaving him heartbroken (it was the first time in over three centuries that she was reminded of West and the look on his face when she told him it was over).

At the age of four hundred and sixty-seven Claire Bradley left her home (and how many times had she done that now?) and got on the first plane leaving the city. Ten hours later she was back in Mericana, in New New York of all places.

--

Ten years later Claire finally returned to Odessa, Texas.

It was a bright, sunny day just as it had been on the day they left. Claire walked down the main road, trying to take in all the changes that had occurred since she was seventeen (she travelled so far and for so long since then but this was the only place that had ever felt like home).

Odessa wasn't a small town anymore; in fact it wasn't even called Odessa these days. It had evolved into a bustling metropolis (much like LA had been back in the old days) and was now known as Odes. But even with all the changes and all the time that had passed Claire was still able to sense where everything had once stood.

She walked past a park that used to be the old quarry and stopped to remember. She could still see so clearly in her mind falling from so high up as Zach yelled. Claire blinked the memory away and continued on. She walked past her old house (now a high-rise building) and eventually came across the site of the original Union Wells High School.

Claire stared at the construction zone as memories of that fateful night played through her mind. As she stood there, she thought about Peter and what he was doing right now. She had sometimes wondered over the years what he had been doing. Was he wandering the earth like she did? Was he out there trying to save the world like he always used to? Did he ever think of her?

Claire sighed and moved on.

Although the city certainly wasn't town she had spent her childhood in, somehow it still felt the same, and it still had that essence of purity. Claire only stayed in Odes for two days before leaving. She didn't belong there anymore. She wasn't innocent enough for Odessa.

--

War broke out between Mericana and New Britain (the mighty Chinon empire had already been conquered and then divided between the other two nations) on the day that she turned five hundred.

It was the largest war Claire had ever seen, and considering that she had lived for half a millennia already that was saying a lot. She sometimes wondered if Adam had somehow instigated it (she had heard rumours about Venus's involvement in the political upheavals in the lead up to the war) and wouldn't have been surprised to discover that he was.

She enlisted, because she could already see that this would involve every single person on Earth and she might as well get in early on the action, and decided it was time (after so many years, and so many disguises, and so many facades) to become herself again. On the records her name was entered as Bennet, C. And for the first time in a long time she smiled. She was Claire Bennet, daughter of Noah and Sandra Bennet, and she was immortal. And that was okay.

She was sent to the front almost immediately after proving that she could already handle weapons and that she could patch up the wounded good enough to get them back to the actual medics (after five hundred years she had picked up quite a few skills). For the first year Claire was stuck just sitting in a trench with the rest of her unit, at a stalemate with the enemy. A month into the second year, they finally had success and managed to move forward a few hundred metres and take over the enemy's trenches. A month after that the unit was ambushed and everyone died. Everyone except Claire.

She avoided capture by playing dead and then started walking through empty and devastated battlefields looking for another unit to join up with. It was three weeks of walking before she finally found someone. It was a rundown shelter and Claire walked in without thinking. She was shot on sight.

When she came to it was to a sight she never thought she'd see again. "Claire!" exclaimed the vision (because surely that's what it had to be, it couldn't really be him, not after all this time).

"Peter?" she replied hesitantly.

And without another word he was picking her up and spinning her around. And then he was kissing her and it was just like it had been all those long years ago. Claire sighed lightly against his lips as she pulled back to look at him properly. Peter hadn't aged a day (except his eyes. They were as old and timeless as hers were).

Standing there in his arms, with the enemy soldiers (because apparently Peter had enlisted with New Britain not Mericana like she did) looking on bewildered and explosions going off all around them outside, everything suddenly felt right again. She was standing with Peter and she would fight alongside him, just as she had when they first met, and this, right here, was right.

This was home.


End file.
